Those
who would classify themselves as the enemies of tyranny and advocates
of freedom have offered—and for quite some time—many reasons
why the United States are in the condition they are in. These reasons
need to be reduced to their principle and need to be studied in terms
of both society and government phenomenon before real remedies can be
applied to the problems caused by the reasons. The reasons can be summarized
into three main statements. The problem with the United States:

(1)
is not with the United States Constitution (“USC”) but with
the people of America;
(2) is not with the USC or the people but with government rulers;[1]
and
(3) is with the USC, regardless of the people or rulers.

It is
admitted that the complexity of this subject cannot be fully dealt with
in a short article as this, but perhaps the content herein will aspire
more people to truly identify the real causes of our plight so that an
enlightenment of the mind will produce freedom, happiness and peace in
all of the societies in America. To that end, I will take the proposed
reasons in order.

(2)
The problem with the United States is not with the USC or the people but
with government rulers.

(a)
Like the arguments expressed in parts 1 and
2 of this article series, regarding the “innocence”
of the USC, I find this argument lacking in genuine and thorough analysis
and conclusion. After all, the Anti-Federalists predicted largely the
predicaments we find ourselves in today even before the USC was ratified.
If the events we have seen for decades cannot be contributed to the opening
of a sort of Pandora’s box—known as the “experiment”
of the USC—then how could the Anti-Federalists have been so correct
in their assessments of the natural consequences of ratifying
the USC? The Anti-Federalists did not rely on just what the proponents
of the USC “intended” or proposed but what human nature would
allow and indeed require based upon this new federal power and construction
of the federal constitution. History proves that the Anti-Federalists
were more correct in their assessments than were the Federalists.

(b)
The it’s-the rulers-fault argument falls short of the deeper
reality and implication stemming from this statement, which would have
an ignorant person think that the federal (and state) officials were not
placed in office by the very people that the proponent of the statement
claims are not the problem of the political plight. Were the proponent
to admit that, yes, there are some who do not understand the USC and that
those are the ones voting people like Obama into office and allowing socialists
and communists to run the country, he would have to admit that at some
point, it would be impossible for the entire Union to remain in a free
condition because there is absolutely no way to control the minds and
hearts (and votes) of hundreds of millions of people across a 3,537,441
square mile area and force them to see the light as to what the USC means.
The USC constitution is composed of people as much as it is composed of
words.

Since
constitutions do not enforce themselves, one cannot rest his political
positions entirely on what he wants the USC to do for him or his State
individually. He has to acknowledge that at some point, it is impossible
for certain parts of the union to cohabitate politically with other parts
of the union, for “getting back to the USC” is as much a religious
and philosophical decision as a political and legal one—a process
which cannot be enforced in courts or even through constitutional amendments.
He has to admit what the political philosophers of yesteryear observed:
that a political structure can become too complex, diverse and large for
its own good, which will eventually cause it to fall due to its imbalance,
heavy weight and lack of foundation.

The
truer observation derived from the its-the-rulers-fault argument
should be stated as such:

The
composition of the union under the United States Constitution as developed
over 200 years of political and constitutional development does not render
the federal government sufficiently controllable by the masses of people
alone within the 50 states composing the union.

Truly,
it is conceivable that the federal agents of the States’ people
may and will misuse the power granted to them by election. But this can
only be known by an educated people. Only an educated people can govern
itself and select qualified representatives to secure freedom. Under that
assumption, Alexander Hamilton proposed that “[t]he natural cure
for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution,
is a change of men.”[2]
But America’s history proves that a change of men has not
cured ill-administration. It has only gotten worse—and under both
media-advanced political parties.

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Despite
changing from one party official to another for generations, the political
structure of the United States has developed to the point that the purported
powers, controls and roles of federal and state jurisdiction have all
but inverted, for as once was proposed, “powers of the general government
should be limited, and that, beyond this limit…the States should
be left in possession of their sovereignty and independence.”[3]
This has taken place upon the elections of thousands of federal and state
officials by the people. In essence, they have asked for what
they have received. Thus,
when Hamilton said, “[e]ither the mode in which the federal government
is to be constructed will render it sufficiently dependent on the
people, or it will not,”[4]
it is a truism that federal encroachment upon the States and the people
respectively would possibly not be controlled by the people. Based upon
this observation, one can easily see then how the federal government’s
continuing and entrenching usurpations could be mistakenly construed as
unilateral in nature, without the consent of the people.

This
reason for this phenomenon is clearly perceived: it is virtually and essentially
impossible to destroy the self-perpetuating and self-aggrandizing beast
once it is born and reaches a certain size with a certain sized appetite.
Any attempts of restraining it are feeble at best. So, what is to be said
of the people where, for generations, federal encroachments have ever
so surely been overlooked, ignored or even accepted by the people? Are
they innocent in their role and duty as guardians of their own liberty?
Or are masses of people naturally incapable of knowing when jurisdiction
is usurped, when power is abused or when they are being lied to? If not,
then the only reasons which can be attached to the problem of federal
encroachment is that (1) the people have shirked their responsibility
and/or (2) the composition of the political system itself does not adequately
provide the people with sufficient control over the federal government
(just as the Anti-Federalists predicted).

Ironically,
what Hamilton showed as the second control over the federal government’s
encroachments over the people is the control which the federal government
has purported is contrary to the USC. Hamilton specifically shows that
where the people do not sufficiently control the federal government, the
State governments would and must. Hamilton says,

“Either
the mode in which the federal government is to be constructed will render
it sufficiently dependent on the people, or it will not. On the first
supposition, it will be restrained by that dependence from forming schemes
obnoxious to their constituents. On the other supposition, it will not
possess the confidence of the people, and its schemes of usurpation will
be easily defeated by the State governments, who will be supported by
the people.”[5]

Despite
the most notable Federalist (Hamilton) saying (baiting?) that the State
governments could control federal usurpation, we have been ordered
through the US Supreme Court since the early 1800s that the States cannot
control the federal government under the USC. (How does one reconcile
what was proposed as being what the USC means to obtain ratification and
what the USC has been rendered to mean after ratification?) Now, we see
that the only external controls over the federal government—the
people and the State governments—fall short of the federal controls
proposed by Alexander Hamilton. Thus, if what we are being told concerning
political power and redress is true (and perhaps the evidence proves as
such), then there is NO control over the federal government and Alexander
Hamilton’s definition of tyranny exists today: “‘[L]iberty
can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have every
thing to fear from its union with either of the other departments,”[6]
seeing that the federal branches of government coalesce in the ever strengthening
of federal power.

The
problem then is not that the rulers alone are to blame but that the political
system itself is to blame because the people and the States at large do
not possess the characteristics to stop federal encroachment. After all,
human nature and experience prove that the extent of government’s
power is not the biggest danger of abuse but is rather the composition
and structure of the political association:

“[A]ll
observations founded upon the danger of usurpation ought to be
referred to the composition and structure of the government,
NOT to the nature or extent of its powers.”[7]

Perhaps
the conclusion should be that since the people and the States are (at
least purportedly) insufficient to control the federal government (i.e.
the composition and structure of the union), the union as is should be
altered or abolished and new forms of government instituted for the protection
of God-given rights, for James Madison proposed this were the form of
federal government destructive to these ends:

“[We]
rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government.
If the plan of the convention, therefore, be found to depart from the
republican character, its advocates must abandon it as no longer defensible.”[8]
*** “We have heard of the impious doctrine in the Old World, that
the people were made for kings, not kings for the people. Is the same
doctrine to be revived in the New?...[If] the Union itself [becomes] inconsistent
with the public happiness…Abolish the Union.”[9]

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No matter
how one states the argument—whether the federal government is acting
unilaterally against the will of the people and a change of men is not
the natural cure for ill-administration or whether the composition of
the people in their societal and political condition cannot sufficiently
control the federal government—the evidence of over 200 years of
the United States’ political existence proves that the proposed
experimental federal form and system has not adequately protected freedom,
sovereignty and liberty. It is time for statesmen to arise.

Timothy N. Baldwin
is an attorney from Pensacola, FL. He received his bachelor of arts degree
at the University of West Florida in 2001 and received his Juris Doctorate
degree from Cumberland School of Law at Samford University in 2004. Baldwin
was a Prosecutor in the 1st District of Florida from 2004 to 2006. In
2006, he started his own law practice, where he created specialized legal
services entirely for property management companies.

Like his father,
Chuck Baldwin,
Timothy Baldwin is an astute articulator of cutting-edge political ideas,
which he posts on his website, www.libertydefenseleague.com
and speaks about in various public forum. Baldwin is the author of Freedom
For A Change, in which he expounds the fundamental principles of freedom
believed by America’s forefathers and gives inspiring and intelligent
application of those principles to America’s current political and
cultural standing. Baldwin believes that the times require all freedom-loving
Americans to educate, invigorate and activate the principles of freedom
within the STATES of America for ourselves and our posterity.